Earlier coverage and reader comments:

Supporters of the hike, proposed Tuesday in the president's State of the Union address, welcome it as a way to lift many minimum wage workers out of poverty in a post-recession economy that -- locally and nationally -- is producing more low-wage jobs than the decent-paying mid-range jobs they are replacing.

Opponents believe raising the minimum wage in a struggling economy will only lead to more layoffs, especially from small businesses that won't be able to absorb the hike financially.

Others may choose to increase prices to compensate for the mandatory raise, opponents say, and higher prices could stall the economy by curbing consumer spending.

<a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/6896761/">Should the federal minimum wage be increased from $7.25 to $9 an hour</a>

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and increases only if Congress votes an increase.

In Ohio, the minimum increased to $7.85 in January because voters in 2006 approved tying the minimum wage to a formula based on the rate of inflation.

Ten states make similar cost-of-living adjustments, including Washington state, where workers earn at least $9.19 an hour. That's the highest minimum wage in the country.

In all, 18 states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages set above the federal rate of $7.25.

Chef Eric Wells of Skye LaRae's Culinary Services in South Euclid opposes increasing the minimum wage to $9 because he believes his suppliers, like many other businesses, will just pass the cost along.

"I do believe that raising the minimum wage will help workers who don't make a lot of money," Wells said.

But he worries that higher wages will "cause prices to increase and the quality of products to go down, because producers and manufacturers will start looking for cheaper ways to offset the cost of the higher minimum wage."

Simmons, a single mother of three in Euclid, said that if she makes more, she'll spend more, which is good for the economy. Besides, she said, anyone who works every day shouldn't be as pressed as she is to pay for basic necessities.

"I'm literally living from paycheck to paycheck," she said. "It's not enough to pay rent, lights, gas, medical insurance and still buy groceries."

Obama's proposal would see the federal floor on hourly wages reach $9 in stages by the end of 2015. Tying the minimum wage to inflation would allow it to rise along with the cost of living.

If enacted, the measure would boost the wages of about 15 million low-income workers, the White House estimated.

The $9 minimum wage would be the highest in more than three decades, accounting for inflation, but still lower than the peaks reached in the 1960s and 1970s.

The president followed up his call for the increase with a trip to North Carolina on Wednesday, attempting to reach voters outside Washington on the plan.

Canadian-based Linamar Corp. opened a former Volvo plant in Asheville that had gone dark and rehired some of its workers. Obama touted it as an example of America attracting jobs from overseas.

"There's no magic bullet here, it's just some common sense stuff. People still have to work hard," he said, arguing that just a few structural changes could have an outsize impact. He said he needs Congress to help pass his initiatives.

"It's not a Democratic thing or a Republican thing," Obama said. "Our job as Americans is to restore that basic bargain that says if you work hard, if you meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead."

"When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it," he told reporters Wednesday morning.

"At a time when the American people are still asking the question, where are the jobs? Why would we want to make it harder for small employers to hire people?"

Proposals to increase the minimum wage have been introduced in Congress in recent years, but have not come to a vote.

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, and U.S. Rep. George Miller, a Democrat from California, said they were working on legislation to raise the minimum wage to $10.10.

"While we believe the president's proposal is lower than what is needed, there is no question that last night he threw the door open for a robust discussion on the importance of raising the minimum wage," they said in a news release.

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, Democrat of Warrensville Heights, who supported a bill last session that would have raised the minimum wage to about $10, said Wednesday she would support new efforts for an increase.

She said doing so would help improve the economic conditions of low wage earners as well as spur consumer spending. Fudge supports the increase for other reasons.

"From a moral perspective, I think we have an obligation to pay what is a fair wage; and not just pay a low wage because you can" she said.

"When you look at the profits of corporations, they have gone up so significantly. When you look at the pay of CEOs, that has gone up significantly, and then you look at the average working person, salaries have basically decreased. Where is the fundamental fairness in this? They are getting rich off the backs of people they don't care are the working poor."

U.S. Rep David Joyce, Republican of Russell Township, said he wants to make sure any proposal wouldn't hurt economic growth.

"I'm all for increasing wages for families," he said in an email. "I think that is a good, common-sense thing, but I want a better understanding on how that impacts the overall economy and job growth."

How raising the minimum wage will affect the bottom line is a big concern for businesses. Several contact by The Plain Dealer -- especially those in the retail and food industries, which employ many low wage workers -- wouldn't comment publicly for fear of being perceived as greedy or callous for not waiting to raise salaries.

But one businesses owner, who declined to be quoted, said this was the reality: He supported workers making more, but an increase wasn't feasible because the hike would cut into already-thin profit margins.

The White House points to companies like Costco, the discount warehouse chain, and Stride Rite, a children's shoe seller, that have previously supported increasing the minimum wage as a way to reduce employee turnover and improve workers' productivity.

"A typical restaurant operates on an average of 3 to 4 percent pretax profit margin, and more than 90 percent of restaurants are small businesses," said Scott DeFife, executive vice president of policy and government affairs.

Jen Kern, minimum wage campaign coordinator for the National Employee Law Project in Washington, D.C., a group in favor of raising the minimum wage, said she doesn't buy the restaurant industry's position.

"The restaurant industry is profitable and did well during the recession," she said. "It has recovered its profits far beyond what these profits were pre-recession, and they have waiters and waitresses making a base minimum wage of $2.13. They are supposed to make up the rest of it in tips."

(In Ohio, the minimum for these workers is $3.93.)

Kern believes raising the minimum wage has a good chance of passing because public opinion polls show most Americans want to see an increase. Also, many states have or are tackling raising minimum wage.

James Sherk, a senior policy analyst in labor economics at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., doubts whether the minimum wage will be increased.

"Typically when Congress is passing the minimum wage increases is when everything looks like it is doing well," he said. "Unemployment isn't much of a pressing concern, and the feeling is the economy can take some higher unemployment" brought on by the pay hike.

"He's got very good intentions, but good intentions are not enough," Sherk said of Obama. "A lot of research has been done on the minimum wage by economists, and you find two things: One, it reduces employment. And two, it doesn't reduce the poverty rate."

Simmons, the nursing aide, said she and her co-workers are counting on the increase. She campaigned for the president's re-election as part of the Service Employees International Union, which has many low wage workers and was one of Obama's most fervent labor supporters.

She considers the president's $9 proposal as a campaign promise kept.

"I have faith in him, and I believe it is going to happen," Simmons said.

Information from Plain Dealer reporter Janet H. Cho, the New York Times and the Associated Press was used in this report.

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